


We Meet Again

by arquadia



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Azgeda, Bellarke, F/M, Heda, Natblida, Nightmares, Rescue, Skaikru, bellamybeincute, comfortingafternightmares, grounders, hidinginacave, kindafluff?, myfirstwork, nosmutsorry, theyhaveapoolscene, wanheda, whatIwishhappenedins3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-23 18:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arquadia/pseuds/arquadia
Summary: Clarke left Bellamy alone in Arkadia after Mount Weather, and he is spiraling without her. When the last rover sanctioned to search for her returns empty-handed, he takes matters into his own hands. On his journey, he not only rediscovers a woman he thought he may have lost forever but also himself, and his capacity to love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in third person following mostly Bellamy's perspective. This is a "slow burn" type story (not as slow burn as the show, thank God) but I'm going to focus more on developing some plot and setting up romantic feelings before I hop into the action. But we'll get there! This is also the first thing I've written, so feedback is great!

 

Bellamy tried to turn the wrench one more time. His knuckles cracked as the bolt squealed. He was jumpy. He was shaky. He had been drinking. The rover he was working on was just a distraction Kane had come up with and he resented it. He was waiting for the search party to come back- the last search party, Kane had said. It had been four months. Either she was dead or she didn’t want to be found, Kane had said. Bellamy had thrown a glass at his head. Bellamy was volatile, Kane had said. A twitch ran across his shoulders as the wrench cut into the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. He felt the rush of cold air before he heard the announcement.

"Party returning. East gate opened." Before the PA even clicked off, Bellamy was at the gate, rover abandoned, wrench on the ground. He could hardly stand waiting for the seven seconds it took the truck to roll in. Monty hopped out and Bellamy stumbled to him, putting his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, his eyes asking the question. Monty winced and shook his head- the bags under his eyes showed that the party had done their best. Bellamy blew hot air and scrambled into the rover, shoving Monty out of the way. It was empty. He crumpled without resistance, the rest of the air in his lungs filling the space Clarke could have been. 

 

Not for the first time in those few months, Bellamy awoke in the sick bay. His curls were tangled and stuck to his head with cold sweat. _An oxymoron_ , he managed to think.

  
"Bell." He heard a long sigh and felt a hand on his arm. Octavia was seated next to him, clearly having come from training. Bellamy tried to shrug away from her but found his arms in restraints.

  
"What are these?" Octavia rubbed and pinched the patch of skin over the crest of her nose.

  
"Abby was worried." She sighed again.

  
"Worried about what?"

  
"Come on, Bell." He felt anger crawling out of his stomach, hungry for a fight. Or a drink.

  
"Worried about _what_?"

  
"She was worried you’d be violent." Though Octavia had been getting steadily stronger, faster, and more accurate these past months, she looked defeated at the moment.

  
"What does she think I am?" The anger had reached his tongue. "Take them off." Bellamy flexed against the cuffs and noticed his feet were tied as well. Octavia scrunched her eyes together.

  
"Can we talk first?"

  
"What do _you_ think I am, Octavia?"

  
"I think you’re mourning."

  
"I’m not mourning! She’s not dead," Bellamy growled. He noticed a little girl in the bed next to him and felt a twinge of guilt. Wasn't he once a role model? A leader? Octavia was fed up.

  
"Well if she’s not dead, Bellamy, she doesn’t want to be found."

  
"You sound like Kane." He spat the words, refusing to believe her.

  
"You know what, Bellamy? Maybe I do. And maybe that’s a good thing." Octavia stood. "Kane is holding this place together. Clarke’s dead or gone-" Bellamy winced- "Abby’s ignoring the problem, and you’re spiraling. Without Kane, Arkadia would be dead. _You_ might be dead." Octavia gestured to the IV bag above her brother’s head. "He’s given you a million chances. You need to move on and step up."

  
"Step up? You’re giving up!" Bellamy felt no shame in yelling, his temper taking over. "She saved your life. How are you repaying her?"

  
"I’m doing what she would have wanted!" Octavia didn’t hide her exasperation. "I’m learning from Indra. I’m learning to take care of _Clarke's_  people. What are you doing? Getting drunk and forgetting what you came here to do." Tears filled Octavia’s eyes, and for once, she didn’t hide them. "You came down to Earth to take care of me, didn’t you?" Her voice broke before returning to anger. "Seems like a bit of a role reversal." Before Bellamy could reply, she stormed out of the sickbay, leaving him restrained and alone. He pressed his head into the pillow and allowed exactly one tear to crawl from the corner of his eye to the fabric.

  
"Nurse?"

 

* * *

 

Bellamy, sucking in a mouthful of damp night air, knocked on the side of Monty’s door. It slid open, the hiss a faint remnant of everyday life on the Ark.

  
"What do you want, Bellamy? I’m not giving you my alcohol rations again."

  
"I came to say I’m sorry." Monty straightened and set his jaw.

  
"Sorry?"

  
"Yeah. I, uh, I put you in a bad position. I’m sorry." Monty pulled him in and gestured to the couch. Bellamy sat.

  
"Why?" Bellamy scratched a twitching jaw muscle, formulating.

  
"I just- I don’t know. I feel like it’s over." Monty bit his lip, and Bellamy realized how much maturing the kid had done over the past few months. He’d become a member of the guard, after all. That was why Bellamy was here.

  
"I know. But I’ll tell the truth." Monty’s voice was edged with pain. They met eyes. "I do really think she’s gone. I don’t think she’s coming back." Bellamy didn’t have to force a tear. Monty shifted, uncomfortable. "Look, you can stay here tonight. I know you-" he wavered. "I know she meant a lot to you. But she’s gone." Monty shuffled into the next room, but not before taking off his jacket. Bellamy made a show of settling onto the couch, then waited exactly thirty minutes. Once the rewired digital clock read 11:57, he crept to Monty’s jacket and eased the zipper open, easily finding the keys.

By 12:39, Bellamy had accessed the armory and kitchen, and was equipped with a rifle, fifty bullets, provisions, and gear. He had been a guard, after all, and he knew their rotations. At 12:59, as Green left his post and before Mbege replaced him, Bellamy left through a loose panel in the wall thirty feet from the main gate. He crawled a thousand feet through the tall grass until he reached the woods, and the guards’ flashlights never touched him. He was five miles out, jogging in the chilled night, before he heard Arkadia’s alarm. He felt no guilt.

He stopped at 8:00 in the bunker in which Finn had executed the grounder. There was still congealed blood on the floor, rotting, but someone had been kind enough to take out the body. Bellamy slept for an hour and dreamed of Finn tied to a pole and Raven screaming.  
Bellamy hadn’t left Arkadia without a plan. The search parties had covered area within 50 miles of Arkadia’s borders and no farther. She had to be beyond there, probably to the North. Lexa wouldn’t take her without telling Arkadia, so it had to be Ice Nation. He had long since dismissed the idea that she might be out there of her own volition. She would have come back by now.

Bellamy never stayed anywhere for longer than a day, traveling mostly at night and sleeping for only three hours at a time. It had been a risk to go to the bunker, but he guessed that Arkadia wasn’t overly concerned about finding him. He was just a delusional drunk.  
Bellamy never shot unless he had to, and never built fires unless he had to. Past the 50 mile mark, he was meat for the Grounders, and Ice Nation would not be kind in his death. Since Mount Weather, they had broken with Lexa, and a guerilla war was being fought on all sides. Arkadia was lucky they were too far to hit easily.  
Bellamy never thought about Octavia unless he had to. _She has Lincoln_ , he would remind himself, whenever she managed to get into his head. If that didn’t stop his thinking, he might start to hypothesize that she hadn’t come looking for him. Even he wasn’t good enough to evade Octavia.

Everywhere he went, Bellamy looked for caves, hideaways, tree lookouts, trading posts, and anywhere Ice Nation could be hiding. As far as he knew, nobody was aware of his presence.

A week in, Bellamy was a hundred and fifty-one miles from Arkadia and had reached true Ice Nation, where the nights slowly bit colder and colder. The first time he stepped into snow, he couldn’t help but smile. It seemed miraculous; living on the Ark, the snow he had seen was in books and in dreams of nuclear winters. He used to tell Octavia a story about a princess who was called Snow White because her skin was so pale. Octavia had said that both she and Snow White needed more sun in their lives and begged Bellamy to take her outside their room, just for a few minutes. Bellamy hadn’t told the story again after that. His smile was gone.  
The snow got old quickly as it moved from dustings to inches, burrowing into his skin and through his thin Ark jacket. The pine trees he walked under would occasionally dump pounds of snow on him, with no warning, and he learned where to walk and when, in order to avoid being buried and to avoid leaving tracks. He was cold but undeterred. 

 

* * *

  

Bellamy was camping in a small, low cave when he heard the voices outside. He was trying to get warm, building a small fire with wet, snowy wood, without success. The voices were dangerously close, and in a dialect of grounder he didn’t understand; he guessed there were two. He squeezed into a nick of the far wall of the cave and cocked the rifle, pressing the butt of it into his sinewed shoulder. Living properly alone, in the real wild, had taken its toll on his body. He hadn’t realized he had grown a scruffy beard until two days ago- infuriated, he had shaved it into chunky patches before realizing he could have done with the extra warmth. He cleared his head as the voices grew nearer and sharpened his muscles as the two saw the remnants of his pathetic fire. In a smooth motion, he ducked out from his nook in the cave wall and shot one grounder in the forehead and one in the thigh. They barely had time to grunt before they were bleeding on the cave ground.

  
"Skaikru- uh-" Bellamy scrambled for the word for yellow, golden, or blonde. He touched his hair, and then the yellow clasp on the bag he had stolen from the armory. "Skaikru. Skaikru." He addressed the live grounder, but the injuries distracted him. Bellamy pulled him up by his neck  and repeated the motion, but his question was not understood. The grounder bled out in forty seconds. Bellamy took their pelts and equipment, glad to have clothes suited for the weather. They were only partly stained with blood.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Bellamy's care with his tracks was, surprisingly, a trait not shared by all grounders. When they felt safe, they got sloppy with their trails. Bellamy followed them occasionally to spy, learning where Ice Nation scouts liked to camp, where they got their food and water, and how they built fires with wet wood. The secret? Pine needles and fur. Thirteen days in, Bellamy could easily recognize an Ice Nation hideout and knew he was getting closer to their palace. Horses were more common, and so were messengers. He was thankful to be west of their fighting with trikru; sometimes he saw warriors returning with missing limbs or unstitched scars. He heard nothing about Clarke- but he would find her, even if he had to kill the Ice Queen herself.

  
Bellamy was learning some of the Ice Nation dialects, but only when they mixed with English or the Trigedaslang he knew. Still, he could recognize names- Lexa, Heda- and thought that this would be his best bet of finding Clarke. He followed grounders and then hid in trees for hours every day listening to their conversations, hoping to hear her name. Four weeks and five days since he left Arkadia, he finally did.

Bellamy was crouched in a tree, his pelts rubbed in snow for a disguise, when he heard it. There were four scouts eating and talking below him, sitting at the mouth of a cave they were camping in. The first time he heard it- "Clarke"- his fingers began to shake. He clutched the branch and willed himself, with every ounce of belief he had left, to be completely still. Then came a word that scared him into stillness: "Wanheda"- Commander of Death. At Arkadia, there was a rumor that that was what the grounders called her. "Wanheda" was spoken six times. Bellamy memorized the faces of each grounder as they spoke, and once the group disbanded, he left the tree and followed the scouts’ tracks. One other had gone with the grounder that had mentioned Clarke first, but Bellamy wasn’t worried. This was the closest he’d been since she left him outside of Arkadia. He was ready to meet her again.

Bellamy followed the tracks for an hour and a half before he heard grounder voices. He crawled through the snow, hiding behind trees, and covering his trail. He forced himself to hide behind a near tree until some of the grounders inside had left- he guessed there were around eight- but when he heard a female voice, a scream, his plan disappeared.

His mind, his fatigue, and his cold melted away, leaving a man coiled for action and breathing hot air into a freezing world. All he could see were Clarke’s tears as she had said goodbye, her back as she disappeared into the woods outside of Arkadia. As he approached the mouth of the cave, he heard another scream, and the falling snow slowed. His heart beat rhythmically in his eyes and for the first time, he understood what Finn had been thinking in that grounder village. The gun in his arms seemed to twitch in anticipation as he came around the corner and stepped into the cave. There was another scream, and he knew.

Bellamy appraised the scene in a half second before shooting. His eyes moved from left to right: he saw three grounders around a small fire, heating up metal tools, and two more sitting in the back. All Ice Nation. Bellamy stopped thinking. His arms moved easily and with a memory of their own; he pumped bullets into the heads of all the grounders present. One managed to slide under the stream of bullets and knock the gun from Bellamy’s grasp, but Bellamy grabbed him by the throat and slammed him onto the fire. The grounder screamed, but Bellamy couldn’t hear. He held the man there for a few seconds before throwing him against the cave wall. The grounder hit it headfirst and split his skull, blood pouring out of the wound. Bellamy’s eyes were blank, his face twisting into anger, then shock, and then back to blankness with abandon. He held the grounder against the wall and snapped his neck in one hard crack. And then the world crashed around Bellamy’s shoulders as more screams, her screams, tore at his ears. He struggled to the back of the cave, under an overhang, and there she was.

She was wearing only a rough tunic and her arms and legs were stretched in an X, tied with rope to a wooden frame. Her head hung down on her chest, blonde hair falling over and past her shoulders. In his momentary mind, Bellamy realized it had grown. She hadn’t been able to cut it. Her bare skin was crisscrossed and dotted in deep cuts, bruises, and burn marks, and completely covered in dry blood and clotted scabs. Bellamy had never considered what Ice Nation might be doing to her. He hadn't allowed himself. This was worse. She looked like a nightmare version of Snow White; frostbitten and limp, blood-crusted, with matted blonde hair and a shoulder that looked dislocated. Slowly, she lifted her head.

  
"Clarke?" Bellamy’s own voice shocked him. He hadn’t spoken in so long. He hadn't said _her name_ in so long. When her eyes met his, it took all he had left to prevent every cell in his body from collapsing right there. Her blue eyes were the only thing unchanged of her entire body, the same clear color that he remembered. But now they were empty, and suddenly filling with terror. She screamed and kicked against her bonds with abandon, as if getting away from him was the only thing that she had ever wanted or needed in her entire life. Her voice gave out and fell into sobbing croaks as she struggled. Bellamy was vaguely aware of a tear escaping his left eye.

  
"Clarke- it’s- it’s me." He whispered the words, terrified, approaching her slowly. As he watched her wrestle her restraints, his heart dissolved in his chest, spreading a stinging pain through every vein in his body. He moved closer.

  
"Clarke, I don’t know what to do." Two more tears fell."Clarke, what do I do?" On the last word, his voice slipped. The cave had shrunk to only her. There was no joke he could crack, no grounder he could shoot to solve this problem. She had forgotten him. He allowed himself to think those four words, and he was blasted by pain.  
"Please. It’s me. It’s Bellamy." Then, at his name, as if God had reached down and lifted her head, Clarke met his eyes again. Her brows twitched and in her blue eyes, ringed red with sobbing and screaming, a pinprick of recognition, of memory, reached the surface. A tiny wingbeat of hope resounded in his chest. "Bellamy. It's Bellamy." Each time he said it, it seemed as if another neuron fired in her brain. "It’s Bellamy. Bellamy." She stopped struggling. He kept speaking. "Bellamy. Bellamy. Bellamy." Her eyes focused on his.

  
"Bellamy?" She whispered. In the tortured silence of the cave, her raw voice broke his heart. He couldn’t stand it- he rushed forward and wrapped her in his arms, remembering the tightness of her hug and allowing himself to feel the tiniest bit happy to feel her in his embrace again.  
"Bellamy?" She whispered it again and again. He almost smiled out loud when she let her face fall into his neck. He cut the rope holding her wrists and she fell into his arms. He was ready to catch her.

* * *

Bellamy wrapped her in the clothes of the men he had killed and carried her three miles away to the last cave he had camped in, a cavity too small to attract a grounder party. In however long Ice Nation had been torturing her, she had lost weight- her ribs and collarbones stuck out obscenely and her wrists seemed too small to be real. Bellamy was afraid he’d break her.

He crawled to the back of the cave, where the ceiling was only five feet high, and lay her down on more stolen pelts.

"Bellamy, Bellamy-" she was still whispering his name, gasping for air, tears pooling in the cuts and burns on her face. He brushed the matted hair out of her eyes and when he looked at her, broken and lost, his heart broke all over again. Momentarily, he panicked: the grounders would be looking for them, she was too injured to travel, and he couldn’t carry her back to camp by himself. Responsibility hit like a wall- he cursed his impulsiveness. He should have found a hideout for them to go to, he should have scouted where they were keeping her beforehand, he should have-

"Bellamy?" They were still crouched on the pelts. He pulled one off from around his shoulders and draped it over her, but she shook it off, trying to sit up. "Thank you."

* * *

First, he investigated the cave. It was only seven feet or so high at the opening and got shallower as it went deeper into the side of a small hill. Towards the back, there was a hole in the ceiling that threw an ironically perfect circle of light onto the dirt floor. Unfortunately, that hole also meant any fire they built would alert grounders in minutes with its smoke. But the entire cave was relatively clean and not too mossy or damp in any place, which was a small hope. Maybe they could stay just until Clarke improved. Remembering her, he turned and crouched by her side, forgetting the cave for a minute. Her skin was horrifically decorated with thousands of wounds the grounders had inflicted. Everywhere he looked were bubbling burns, curving slashes, and entire patches gouged out or peeled off. Bellamy was an angry man by nature, and he could feel it now, winding around his throat, choking him into action. But there was nothing he could do. 

"Why?" He growled, rearranging the furs. The thin tunic she had been wearing was dirty and had been shoddily re-tied onto her body. He was furious. "Why would they take you?" Clarke slipped a pale white hand into his.

"They wanted to know where the guns were."

"The guns? I thought grounders hated guns." Bellamy balled up some of the pelts under her head. He forced his rage into a small box at the back of his brain. Now wasn't the time to blow up. She swallowed shakily.

"Ice Nation is desperate. Queen Nia will do anything. She wants to attack Lexa-" she blinked, hard. "We have to- camp has to prepare- there might be a-"

"The camp will be fine. And you will be, too, if you let me clean these." He tried to sound confident, pushing a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. In reality, Bellamy was never a brilliant medic. He'd always been the one doing the injuring in the first place- or getting injured himself. "And when we do get back to camp, I'll kill the Ice Nation Queen myself." She shook her head sadly.

"Do you have a medkit?" He dug it out of his bag. There was a large bottle of Monty's moonshine- their makeshift antiseptic- suture supplies, bandages, a splint, and tweezers. Not enough. "Okay. You have to clean, disinfect, and bandage."

He went in slow circles, moving from the bottom of her left foot up to her knee. The water was freezing and she was so weak that he couldn’t work for more than three minutes before she started to shiver violently. The first time his rag touched the bottom of her foot, she whimpered- a cold white hand clutched his warmer brown arm.

"Are you okay? Can I keep going?" She nodded, biting her lip hard.

"I’m not going to die here."

"At least lie down. Please." He helped her onto her back and rearranged the pelts before returning to her foot. She hissed as he washed the mangled flesh, and his heart shook, hating himself for hurting her.

After a few hours, taking periodic breaks, he finished with her legs and arms- cleaning, applying antibiotic, and bandaging. When it was all finished, they were both exhausted. They lay next to each other in the dark.

"I’m- I’m so sorry, Clarke." There was a beat of freezing silence.

"For what?"

"I should have- I should have come sooner. And now we’re going to freeze to death, or you’ll get sick, or-" she cut him off with a small, white, cold hand on his collarbone.

"We won’t. Thank you for saving my life." Another minute of silence passed by while Bellamy rummaged, pulling the pelts around them.

"If we don’t- we can’t stay warm if we don’t-"

"I know. And I’m tired of being cold." Slowly, with a low groan of pain, she shuffled her bandaged body against his.

"I don’t want to hurt you, Clarke-"

"Please don’t let go. It hurts if you hold me, but it hurts more if you don’t."

She whispered it into his chest, but her raspy words ricocheted in the darkness of the cave.

Bellamy nodded and put his arm around her, carefully, settling into their makeshift bed.

"Promise to wake me up if you need anything?" She nodded into him, already half asleep. He stared out of the small hole in the top of the cave, the view of the night sky framing a single star. It wasn’t moving, but he made a wish anyway.

 

When Bellamy awoke, he tried to shrug himself out of the furs, remembering instantly that he still had to disguise their cave somehow. But a hand stopped him.

"Where- where are you going?"

"I have to cover the entrance to this cave. No doubt the grounders are already looking for us." She bit her lip, and Bellamy reminded himself to get water as well. He had to finish cleaning her wounds. Her hand tightened on his arm.

"Don’t go far."

"Never, Princess." The nickname earned a tiny smile from her, something Bellamy thought he might never see again. He was glad he had been the one to make it happen.


	3. Chapter 3

Bellamy came back after gathering water to find Clarke fast asleep, but twitching and mumbling. He hadn't remembered her doing that last night, but they had both been too tired to dream. He was glad she was at least sleeping. And then, seeing her small body framed by wolf and deer skins, he remembered something he had read in elementary school on the Ark. Native Americans of this area- the East coast of the United States and Canada- would bury themselves in snow holes at night to keep warm, because the ice was a good insulator. Ironic, but effective. He left the water and went to gather snow, dragging back mounds of it in trip after trip, taking it from near the river where its disappearance wouldn't be noticed. Then he packed it around the mouth of the cave, stacking it seven feet high at the mouth to make the hideout look like the side of a regular snow-plastered hill. He left one small hole in the bottom left corner, covering it with branches and leaves, for entry and exit. After a few hours of working, blissfully uninterrupted by grounders, he heard a small cry from behind him.

Immediately shocked into action, he dove through the entrance and shuffled as fast as he could to the back of the cave.

"Clarke? Clarke? Are you okay?" With the entrance mostly covered, the back of the cave was nearly pitch black. He fumbled for a flashlight, hearing muffled cries and whimpers. Clicking it on, he saw Clarke tossing and sobbing in her sleep. Some of her bandages were coming off, revealing her maimed flesh. Bellamy put the flashlight in his teeth and crawled to her, lightly tapping her cheek and shaking her shoulders. "Clarke, wake up. Clarke, please." She was scratching at her arms and legs with abandon, tearing off the bandages, as if trying to rip off her own skin. Bellamy held her wrists down, trying desperately to wake her up.

He shook her one more time, on the verge of tears himself, and she arched her back, eyes opening, as she gasped for air. He shuffled away from her. "Clarke- are you-" Still heaving, she crawled as far away from the bed as she could before retching, tears mingling with her vomit. He went to her, trying to hold her hair away from her mouth or rub her back, but she crawled away from him, kicking at the dusty cave floor.

"I'm- I'm-" she retched again, mid-sentence. Bellamy didn't move. She pressed herself against the cave wall, shaking her head and blinking, scrunching her face up, pulling at her hair. "I'm fine, Bellamy." He moved closer to grasp her hand, but she struggled away, as if desperate to get away from him. There was a wild terror in her eyes. She was beginning to shiver. He stayed as still as he could, his heart pounding at the back of his eyes. Her shuddering, irregular breaths punctuated the nothingness of the cave.

"Clarke, you're-"

"I just need- I just need to be alone for a minute, okay?" Her teeth chattered. "Just- just don't touch me, just don't-" Bellamy sat down hard.

What did he do wrong? Did she forget him again?

"You're... cold." He said, after a long moment. The only sound in the frozen cave was the sound of her uneven breathing and her teeth clacking. She curled her knees to her chest and nestled her face between them, her curly blonde hair washing over her body like a dusting of matted gold.

"I'm- I'm fine." Clarke heaved again, but nothing came up. She tangled her hands in her hair, and Bellamy noticed that the wounds he had bandaged were bleeding again.

"No, you're not. Please, Clarke." He paused, his desperate eyes now matching her own. "I don't know what to do." She looked up. Bellamy had been trying to be strong, to be the perfect hero for her, but he felt his facade cracking. "I do the punching. You do the fixing. That's how it was." His voice cracked too, and he noticed his hands were shaking. "I'm trying to fix you- you're, you're bleeding-" Even in the dark, he could see her eyes sharpen.

"You're trying to fix me?" She still shivered. He wished so hard that he could wrap the pelts, and his arms, around her. That was how he used to comfort Octavia when she was little. That was how he knew to help. But that was years ago and thousands of miles above them. "I don't need to be fixed. I'm still Clarke." Bellamy cursed his stumbling speech.

"I know, I know- they could never break you, I know." The words came fast and awkwardly. "But please, tell me what to do. Tell me how to help." She put a hand to her lower side, where she was bleeding through her tunic. He hadn't cleaned there. She must have opened an old wound. Clarke took a deep breath and bit her lip, pressing on the gash. She cut him off before he could comment on it.

"Do you remember when you were in Mount Weather? When you had to be captured in order to get in?" Her voice was wavering. He nodded, remembering for a wrenching moment- but he set his jaw and looked back to her.

"Of course I do, Clarke. Stop distracting me. You're bleeding." He reached for the place where blood was beginning to seep between her fingers, but she stopped him.

"No. Wait. Before- before everything happened, before the lever, Maya told me about when she woke you up. In the back of the infirmary." Bellamy's breath turned cold in his mouth. She knew about the guard, about what he had done. Was she afraid of him?

"I was- I was out of it, I was-" Clarke cut him off.

"I'm not mad at you for strangling him. I understand." Bellamy's lungs were empty of air and words. If she wasn't mad, or scared, what was wrong? He looked to her eyes, eyes that were ancient, that had seen and felt things he couldn't imagine. She continued."You knew you were there for a reason. You knew I was coming for you. You had allies. You _could_ strangle a man." She was breathing easier, but tears still fell in sheets over her cheeks. "Imagine being inside Mount Weather, being tortured-" her breath hitched- "tortured and worse, for weeks, but being completely helpless. I had no backup plan. I expected to die in that cave." Bellamy _couldn't_ imagine it. "The only thing I could do was scream, but they liked that." There were no words to say. "I'm not okay, Bellamy. I know that."

She finally clasped his hand, and his heart started beating again. "And I might need your patience. I don't know what is wrong with me, besides the obvious." Clarke nodded to the wound still pulsing blood on her lower side. She met his eyes. "But I believe I'm going to heal, and I believe we'll make it back to Arkadia- to your sister, to my mom, and to everyone waiting for us." She sighed, the tears slowing, as she leaned back against the wall again. A moment passed as she waited, nervous for his answer.

"I believe so too, princess." A tiny, sad smile. "I'll try to be patient. I'll try to understand. I think I am." She took his hand again. "And right now, I need to stitch you back up before you faint on me."

Clarke nearly laughed as she crawled to him. He heaved her into his arms and then placed her carefully onto the pelts. He began to carefully roll up her tunic to access the wound but stopped short.

Her blue eyes, with tears still pooled in them, met his nervous brown ones.

She put a hand on his arm.

"It's okay." She was sincere. "Just-" she took a breath-" tell me what you're going to do before you do it." She closed her eyes and settled into the fur.

"Okay." He was more nervous than she was. His fine motor skills had never been exceptional, probably from years of wearing out the nerves by punching walls, bags, and people. And he just wanted her to be comfortable. "I'm going to take off your tunic." He fiddled with the ties and pulled it off.

He sucked in a breath. The grounders hadn't left an inch of skin untouched. The worst was the purple and black bruises in the shape of finger and handprints. He pushed the rage away. She kept her eyes shut. "I'm going to put something over your chest." He rustled his discarded jacket over her, leaving only what he needed to see uncovered. "I'm going to wash my hands." Ten breaths, the splash of water. "I'm going to pour water over the cut." A small hiss of pain. "I'm going to press a wet cloth over the cut." Another hiss. "I'm going to move the cloth down and put the needle in for the first stitch."

He saw her hands clutch the pelts and heard her groan of pain as he pushed the needle in. He decided that this was the worst thing he had ever had to do. Worse than shooting the Chancellor. Worse than being forced to watch his mother ripped apart by the vacuum of space. This was _Clarke_ , but in order to make her better, he had to hurt her. Bellamy took a deep breath, the kind that fills your entire chest, all the way down into your stomach. "In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out." More groaning. "You're doing great. Only two more stitches." She nodded, sweat running down her forehead. "In. Out. In. Out." He tied off the knot, and her clenched muscles relaxed. Bellamy noticed his hands were shaking, but he took a breath and wiped her forehead.

"Good job, Bell." He almost laughed.

"I did a good job? You didn't even scream! I've never done that before, you know." Clarke faked shock, and the mood lightened for a split second. Then she sighed again. "You might as well finish cleaning my torso." Bellamy tensed.

"We can, uh, take a break- you don't have to-" She shook her head and spoke.

"The burns and bruises say differently. Let's get it over with."


	4. Chapter 4

 

With the cave entrance blocked, their hideout was a bit warmer, but not much. Once Clarke’s wounds were cleaned and bandaged, they again collapsed. He held her delicately at first, still afraid of hurting her- but in painless sleep, they snuggled against each other. Clarke woke up a few times, squirming in a nightmare, but was comforted by the anchor of Bellamy’s solid frame and his hands stroking her hair. For the next two weeks, they spent their days and nights huddled in the cave, waiting for Clarke to heal. Bellamy would go out for a few hours early in the morning- hunting, gathering water, or repatching the cave entrance. Then, with a tenderness Clarke had never seen in him before, he would unwrap her bandages, clean the slowly shrinking wounds, and rewrap with a freshly washed cloth.

  
"Bellamy, I need you to make me some clothes." He was finishing wrapping her left foot- the grounders had been merciless on the soles of her feet and palms, where there were the most nerve endings- but he looked up.

  
"I hadn’t thought of that."

  
"Well, you’ve had enough practice stitching my flesh." He smiled, briefly. She rolled over in a practiced motion, allowing him to reach her ankle and wincing for a moment as the bandage pressed on a stubborn burn. "The grounders’ stuff is mostly just pieces, and I-" she swallowed- "I don’t want to wear this tunic anymore." He nodded, tying off the bandage and moving to lean on the wall next to her. He looked at his hands.

  
"I get it."

  
"Thank you." Over the past few weeks, they had developed a kind of tacit form of communication; they could sit in perfect silence with each other, back to back or alongside in the furs if it was cold. Sometimes he would watch her for hours as she drew in charcoal and water on the cave walls. She had made pictures of Raven, Monty, her mother, and the view from the top of Mount Weather. Jokingly, she had said it reminded her of lockup on the Ark. Bellamy didn’t find it funny.

  
"So, you think you’re getting ready to travel, then?" In the present, Bellamy was nervous. He ran his thumbs over his opposite hand, tracing lines between the freckles. Clarke nodded, slowly.

  
“I think so. I just have to wait until my feet heal a bit more.” Bellamy swallowed.

  
“But what about your back? And your shoulder still might be in its joint wrong, I didn’t know the right way to-“ Her brows crawled downward.

  
“I’m doing better, Bell. I can’t stay in this cave forever.” She sighed, and Bellamy had a sudden bout of dejá vu. He was under the fluorescent lights of the Ark, in his sterile once-home. Octavia was begging him to take her outside, just for a moment.

  
_“I can’t stay in this room forever, Bellamy!”_ She had said. That was nearly seven years ago- he was only seventeen. Younger than Clarke.

  
_“You won’t, O. I promise.”_ He had lied to his sister, and she knew it.

  
“Bell?” He was snapped back to the cave. Only his sister used to call him that- Bell. He looked at Clarke properly, at her blonde hair, now brighter that it had been washed and combed. At her pink nose and cheeks, still flushed with cold, and sharp blue eyes that he knew could cut. She was gaining weight, thank God, but her small frame curled up against the cave wall pulled something tiny and panicked out of Bellamy’s chest and into his throat. He spoke.

  
“You won’t, Clarke. I promise.” He took a breath of clear, cold air. “But not yet. Just wait a bit longer. I can’t have found you again just for you to die in the woods.” She unfurled, stretching on the furs, her back to him. He studied the shape of her shoulders and the way they lapsed into her neck, noticing an unfamiliar twist in his stomach.

  
“One week more, just until my feet heal, and then we’re leaving.”

 

The week passed. Clarke counted the days in black tally marks on the wall. Their cloud of tension had passed quickly, but the marks, in fingery smudges that reminded Bellamy of Clarke’s bruises, were proof that she had not forgotten. But he admitted that she _was_ getting better- eating more, having fewer nightmares- and the blisters on her feet were closer to scars. When he awoke, seven days later, he was cold. He fumbled around, feeling for her- upon finding nothing, he sat up, worried.

  
“Clarke?”

  
Her figure was silhouetted in the cave. She sat, cross-legged, packing their supplies into the rucksack he had stolen from Arkadia. Over the last week, she’d become much more mobile- not that Bellamy hadn’t been two feet behind her at all times, just in case.

  
“Since there’s only one pack, we can switch off carrying.” Her voice cut through his foggy morning mind. He snorted.

  
“Like hell we can.” She stopped, flicking hair out of her eyes, trying to be patient.

  
“I’m stronger, Bell. You don’t have to be so overprotective.” Something twitched deep inside Bellamy. He took her hands in his, suddenly frantic. He met her eyes and she was shocked by the edge in their usual soft brown.

  
“Please, Clarke. Let’s just stay here. Just for a while longer. Please. Please, Clarke.” She put a hand on his cheek, her face slanting in sadness, her voice strained and quiet with hurt.

  
“I wish we could. A part of me wishes we could stay in this cave forever." Her hand stilled on his face, her fingertips hovering over his dark freckles. "But I need to go home. _We_ need to go home.” She stood up and offered him a hand. He took one last breath of the damp cave air he was so used to. He decided to trust her, and to trust them.

  
“Okay.” He took her hand.

 

* * *

 

They had been walking for two days when they came upon the spring. Bellamy had searched it on his way to her, but hadn't stayed long. But upon returning, he noticed the smoother outcropping at once. He grinned and took Clarke's hand.

  
"I have a surprise for you."

  
A smile tickled the corners of her mouth. He pulled her around the boulder- he remembered it because it had a mossy outcrop in the exact shape, curve for curve, of Octavia's nose- and the smile broke across her face. For a moment, they both stared at the scene: a low pool gouged cleanly out of the mountain. Veins of varying rock types and rivulets of condensing steam crawled down fjord-like boulders surrounding the water. From a crack in the mossed rock flowed steaming water, its untouched blue churned up from pockets of heat bold enough to break the Earth's crust. Fluttering birch trees, their crackling white matching the snow, protruded like a halo from the boulders' tops. Bellamy had seen it before, but he had been in too much of a rush to inhale it the way he could now.

After a few warmed breaths, he looked to Clarke- her whole body was perfectly still except her eyes, which simmered hotter than the water before them. Her cheeks were flushed from the temperature change, the pink crossing from her ear into the valley of her cheekbone, up onto the crest of her nose, and back over, ending its journey in a golden curl. He marveled that the rose of her cheeks matched her lips to the hue, those lips that he had made smile. The scenery was breathtaking, but his eyes rested on her instead.  
Clarke stepped forward, ripping off her boot and dipping a toe in the water. She groaned.

  
"Bell, it's perfect." He grinned, pulling off his clothes- he left on a pair of undershorts- and lowering himself into the water. Clarke watched him, the way his knotted muscles moved as he ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair.

  
"Join me?"

  
She followed his example, leaving on a thin shirt and underwear. He looked away until she was submerged to her shoulders, hoping the hot water seemed a plausible cause of the redness in his cheeks. She hissed as a few unhealed wounds touched the water. She bit her lip but attempted to diffuse Bellamy's worried glare.

  
"This place is... spectacular." Clarke stood up- the water line only reached to just above her navel- and Bellamy looked away again. She splashed him. "Nothing you haven't seen before, right?" He smiled. A half smile for a half joke.

  
"Did you just splash me?" Clarke only had time for a half breath before the torrent of water crashed over her.

  
"Bellamy Blake, say your prayers." For a few minutes, the usual silence of the forest was abandoned for perfect chaos, disrupted by a hurricane of spring water, giggles, and shrieks. Bellamy wound up, pulling his arms behind him like a bird about to take flight, and then brought them together in a huge clap, sending a plume of water over Clarke. She stepped back, laughing, and then yelped as she slipped on something in the bed of the spring. She toppled backward, her head on a collision course with the boulder behind her. But Bellamy, whose reflexes were never turned off, ripped the water out of his way and moved behind her. Her body thudded against his as he caught her.

  
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to- we were just-" She cut him off, turning around in his arms. The blue of her eyes matched the blue of the water and for a moment, the boulders and steam and crusted blood and split lips and matted hair and the long journey ahead melted into the crevices of the mountain like icicles in the sun; for a moment, Bellamy just held Clarke.

  
He couldn't formulate any thought to think or conjure any word to say. Now, simply looking at her, holding her, something buried deep in the fathoms of his soul lit on fire.

  
"It's okay, Bell. We were just playing around." She prodded his arm. "You can, uh, let me go now?" He unclenched, thrown, but they were both smiling.

  
"Sorry."

  
"Like I said, nothing you haven't seen before, right?" She attempted the sad joke again. Bellamy held her wrist.

  
"Clarke. I'll never tell anyone about what happened in that cave. You know that, right?" His voice was husky and sincere. She nodded, her smile wriggling to a different shape that had an ancient quality, a sadness, to it. But it was still a smile.

  
"I know." He still held her hand. "I knew the moment you untied the tunic."

* * *

 

They hit the road again three hours later.  
The first week was as cruelly cold as they had seen- December had crept up quickly. Bellamy taught Clarke how to track and recognize grounder paths and hideouts. For the time being, they had no fights to pick with Azgeda, and none arose. It seemed as if even the Ice Nation chose to tuck themselves away during the worst part of winter. After some careful calculations and realizations, the pair estimated that they should average twenty miles a day, camping in and around the places Bellamy had scouted on his way up. They weren't sure exactly how far North they were, but they'd keep walking twenty miles a day in the right direction until they found home.

  
The second week brought the excitement of walking on ground that bounced back instead of staying resolutely frozen. The travelers shed their outermost layers of furs and slept in the open air, the warmth bringing them boldness and no need to crawl into moss-ridden caves to stay warm.  
In the third week, the world's greens and browns began to emerge from the frosted white and gray they were so used to. Clarke was healed but shaky, still regaining her strength, and as promised, Bellamy was patient. Not that they didn't tease each other- after walking for hours upon hours, little jokes and quips were more sustaining than a bite of charred meat.

  
Though it was warmer farther South, they still slept under the same furs. Neither wanted to be alone or apart, and when Clarke woke from her regular nightmares, shaking or choking on tears, Bellamy was there to wrap her in his arms and stroke her hair until she fell back asleep. Sometimes, her terrors focused only on her torture in the cave; sometimes, they were of Finn; sometimes, they brought the faces of those she had killed in Mount Weather. The last kind Bellamy understood the best, but also shook him the most.

One night, Clarke had a particularly bad one, sobbing about Maya and Dante and scratching at her hands, as if trying to take off the skin that had touched the lever. Bellamy clutched her hands, feeling her ragged nails dig into his own palms.

  
"Clarke! Clarke!" He shook her lightly. Her nails scratched at his calloused skin, but he could hardly feel it. Her body jerked with sobs of guilt.

  
"I'm sorry- I had to- Lexa-" Her eyes remained firmly shut, her mind spinning in Mount Weather's turbines.

  
"Clarke, wake up. Please." He shook her once more.

  
"Maya- I never wanted to- Jasper-" A fresh round of frantic tears washed over her as she remembered Jasper's face, remembered him holding Maya as she died, remembered how full of hatred his eyes had been.

  
"Clarke- please-" Bellamy brushed a hand over her face, resting his fingers on her cheek for a half second before tucking a piece of blonde hair behind her flushed ear. As his fingers dragged across her jaw, she gasped awake, her ribcage arching off of the furs. The blank terror in her eyes set ice crawling down Bellamy's back, colder than the Northern ice had been. Without a word, her shaky hands went up to his chest and balled his shirt into white-knuckled fists. He reached around her and pulled her closer to him, steadying her erratic breath by stroking her hair in a smoothing rhythm. He was also steadying himself- when Clarke had these nightmares, he too remembered the concrete maze of Mount Weather being irradiated and the cries of the children he had murdered. Those children who he had seen walking to their preschool, wearing backpacks that were too large for their bodies. Innocent people he had killed. They were both shaking.

  
"Sorry, Bell." He was jolted back to the present by Clarke's muffled voice reverberating in his chest. He moved his hand down to her back and tightened his grip.

  
"You never have to be sorry." His voice was stretched with pain. "You know that, right? Never." She nodded into his embrace.

  
"I know." She lifted her chin, resting it on his sternum, and he looked down to meet her gaze. Her eyes, even in the dark, glinted with blue. He hated seeing them so ragged and red- nowhere else in her face did agony sit so well. "Bellamy?"

  
"Hm?"

  
"Do you ever think about Mount Weather?" He nodded, slowly.

  
"All the time." A beat of guilt sat in the night air. "It- it adds up, you know?" He realized that now would be another one of those times he just couldn't say what he really meant. "I'm not good at explaining things, Clarke. But all these things I've done- they sit deep down in my chest." He sighed. "They're heavy."

  
"We've done."

  
"What?"

  
"The things _we_ _'ve_ done." God, this girl. A small chuckle passed from his stomach to his throat. "I feel it too. The weight of it all. It weighs worlds."

  
"Do you think it goes away?" For the first time in a long time, Bellamy needed reassurance. Clarke was good with emotions, wasn't she?

  
"I don't know." She nudged her body into the curve of negative space his had left for her. "But I know it gets lighter." Her words echoed against the trees around them, blending with the sounds of the forest.

  
"Or maybe we just get stronger." He rested his chin against her forehead. They were good at being together, he realized. They moved in sync.

  
"We'll always have to be getting stronger, you and I." She pulled up the pelt, and they fell asleep with the weight of the worlds on top of them.


	5. Chapter 5

  
They walked for three more days before they could be sure of where they were. When Clarke saw the tree, she nearly squealed aloud. It was a well-known landmark, since its twisted trunk split near the bottom and then came back together, making a near perfect circle in the middle. Stabbed everywhere into the trunk were grounder knives, some nearly completely buried by the growth of the tree. They belonged to great trikru warriors who had been killed in battle. A figure eight, turned sideways, was etched into the handle of each knife. Clarke had heard something about that being a holy symbol for grounders- it had something to do with Lexa, too. Couldn't be good. Bellamy ran his fingers over the pockmarked tree.

"We're close, Clarke."

"I know." She bit her lip, remembering. It was a tic Bellamy had noticed more and more lately.

"Are you excited?"

"Honestly? I'm terrified." He looked over sharply.

"What? Why?"

"I left." She crossed her arms, rubbing her shoulders that had erupted in sudden shivers. She didn't meet his eyes. "God, I was so selfish." Bellamy put a hand to the place where her back met her neck, his hardened skin cool against hers.

"No, you weren't. I understand why you had to go." His voice, huskier, had dropped into his chest. She finally looked up at him.

"You do?" He nodded, slowly.

"It took me a long time. I was- I was angry for a long time." One tear poked the side of his eye. "Sometimes, I even wished I'd gotten out with you when I had the chance." He leaned against a nearby birch, his jaw muscle twitching, sending a ripple down and into his neck. He was ready to come clean. "Clarke, I- after you left, I wasn't doing too good." He risked a glance at her face and regretted it- he could see the worry whirling behind her eyes. "I made some bad choices. I drank a lot." Those eyes widened, just a bit, just for a moment. "I was still there, physically, but the day you left, Arkadia lost two leaders." He scrubbed a hand through his messy curls, letting a few more tears inch down his tawny skin, tracing paths between his freckles. Clarke couldn't stand it. She hurried to him, holding his head in her hands.

"I'm sorry." Her voice croaked, bending and breaking in only two words. Her thumb wiped one of his tears away, and that spark inside of Bellamy jumped to his throat.

"Don't be. We both had our problems, we just dealt with them differently." He was acutely aware of her small hands holding his head. He needed to shave. Why hadn't he shaved?

"God, if I'd just taken your advice. We could have worked it out _together_."

"What do you think we're doing now?" He smiled weakly, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, his face sinking into the hollow between her ear and shoulderblade. She breathed in the smell and pressure of his skin, and he savored her golden hair tickling his senses. They were completely and tightly wrapped in each other, bound together in a million unspoken whispers. Then, so suddenly that Bellamy wasn't sure if he was imagining it at first, a shudder of pain spread through his thigh, weeping warmth down his leg immediately. He cried out, staggering back, suddenly terrified as he saw Clarke's expression. It was pure rage and fright. Clenching his teeth against the pain, not ready to reach down and feel how much blood he was losing, Bellamy flipped around to face his attacker: a small party of trikru grounders.

"Run. Run, Clarke!" His voice surprised him- strained and cracking, not as it had been. He struggled for his gun, but it was gone. They must have taken it when they stabbed him. One grounder hit him upward, driving her fist into his jaw- and though pain and shock hit him hard, he managed to say on his feet. "Run, Clarke! Now!" He couldn't see her. He staggered backward, trying to pull the knife from his belt, but he was too slow. The grounder hit him again, and if Bellamy's knowledge of punching was correct, the force with which his face had just been struck was enough to break the grounder's hand. Clarke needed to run. He was about to yell at her one last time when he saw a flash of blonde and heard the sickly sound of a knife entering flesh.

Clarke crouched over a grounder, ripping her weapon out of his chest. Her victim twitched and shuddered, but she had gotten him right in the heart. Ignoring his pain, Bellamy shuffled forward, heaving Clarke up. There was a thin line of blood spattered across her face, and her eyes were completely blank. He wanted to say something, do something, but there was no time. The other three grounders charged.

Bellamy swung his fist, with a knife clutched in it, into the neck of the warrior closest to him. The spray of blood sent a cold shiver from his skull to his feet. He had killed, but never like this. Never so urgently, never so closely. Never with so much blood. It was easier from behind the barrel of a gun. But he didn't have a spare moment to dwell on his morality- the second grounder wound up and punched Clarke squarely in the face. She stumbled backward, spitting blood, as the attackers threw themselves at Bellamy.

The next few minutes were a blur as they attacked Bellamy from all sides, slashing and punching. Through the haze of blood and pain and anger, Bellamy realized he had stabbed one. And then, before he could even snatch a breath, hands were around his neck, crushing him from the inside out. He felt his windpipe close and his vision begin to fade, the light fizzling out. All he thought about was Clarke- Clarke, who he would be leaving alone in this world, who he had failed. He slipped into that dark place between life and death, pressure building in his head. If he was dying, he would die without looking at her one last time, without saying all the things he wanted to say, without making the jokes he had thought of when she was asleep. He would die unhappy. So he wouldn't die.

Bellamy heaved his aching eyes open. He felt his heartbeat in his pupils. He could make out spots of color, and sound scratched his ears, hanging around his head but not reaching his brain. He took a harsh breath and eked a hard groan from his closed throat. Then, in an instant, the darkness above him parted, leaving scattered blue and white in his vision. He could breathe again. He was alive, and he was determined to stay that way.

The first thing he saw, as soon as his eyes could focus, was the blood- everywhere. The grounder who had been choking him was lying face-up on the forest floor, with Clarke's knife driven through the back of his skull and out of his eye. The view hit him with another wave of adrenaline, and he crawled to a tree, pressing his back against it. He looked around wildly- and there was Clarke, with her fists up, just like he had taught her. Facing the last Grounder.

_"Cover your face,"_ he had said to her. _"Always protect your head, but be ready to block elsewhere."_

The Grounder swung, and Clarke blocked. Swing, block. Swing, block. He was forcing her out of the clearing, up against a tree. She fumbled a step and he grabbed her, throwing her against the trunk. She screamed, scrambling to get up, but the Grounder grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the tree again. He grunted something, low and dangerous, into Clarke's ear. Her entire body stiffened, fresh tears falling from her eyes. Rage bit into Bellamy with more force than any knife. He willed every cell in his body to stay up, to get to her, to do something. He clamped a hand over his wound and threw a punch at the Grounder, putting his weight behind it, putting all the muscle he had left into it. The Grounder turned and caught his fist.

Bellamy braced, but the hit still knocked him back to the ground. The brute force of it left him blinded for a long moment, while he expected a knife to finish the job. But he felt nothing. Rather, he heard a gunshot whip through the air with a sickening crack, and then a low thud. He blinked the agony from his eye sockets to see the grounder on the forest floor with a perfect hole in his head, and Clarke, keeling over beside him.

She clutched her side, from which blood was pouring, and her face was a tempest of torment. Bellamy was about to say something, anything, but she opened her mouth and began to sob- if you could call it that. The sound ripped into his heart like a serrated blade- it was a guttural sound, almost subhuman. He tried to crawl to her, to hold her, but he felt his vision beginning to leave him. His pulse was becoming as ragged as his breath. He was losing blood. He could feel his soul slipping away, going to that place from which he wouldn't come back.  
  
At the exact moment Bellamy gave up, shouts began to echo through the clearing. Not Clarke's. Boots stepped into his narrowing line of sight. Hands grabbed him. The last thing he felt before he dropped away was a sharp pinch in his neck, and his last thought was of Clarke's blue eyes, those eyes he might never get to see again.


	6. Chapter 6

Like Bellamy all those months ago, Clarke awoke in the sickbay. The first thing she noticed was the fluorescent lights- she hadn't been under fluorescent lights in so long. She was in Arkadia. How had she gotten here? She sat up quickly, causing her vision to suddenly drop away while her blood pressure adjusted. She could only think of one thing to say.

"Bellamy! Bellamy!" Hands cupped her face. Someone had been sitting next to her bed. Without looking, Clarke knew they were her mother's hands.

"Clarke." Abby's voice broke and she didn't hold back the tears. Clarke surprised herself by remaining dry-eyed, but she turned to look at her mother. The woman seemed years older, with new lines running across her face- but she wasn't less beautiful. Rather, the lines more accentuated her blue eyes. "You're okay, sweetheart. You're home."

"Bellamy. Where is Bellamy? How did I get here?" Abby took her hands away from her daughter's face, instead smoothing the papery hospital gown Clarke was now wearing.

"Shhh, Clarke. Miller was leading a hunting party and stumbled upon you two. We sedated you for transport."

"You sedated me?" She wriggled off of the bed, standing unsteadily.

"Clake, stop." Her mother held her wrist. "Are you even listening to me?" Clarke knew she should talk, she knew her mother deserved an explanation. But in the present, her aching soul needed something- someone- else.

"Where is Bellamy?" She pulled off the tape from her inner arm and detached the IV. Looking around the sickbay, Clarke felt herself begin to panic. Was this unfamiliar place where she had spent so many hours working? She saw a red jacket on a peg and was reminded of Raven. _Oh God, Raven_. And Monty, and Miller, and everyone she had left behind. "I need to see him right now."

"No, Clarke, I-"

"Get me some clothes, mom. I need to see him." Abby stood, decisively, blocking her daughter.

"Stop, Clarke. You've been missing for months. You're covered head to toe in old scars-" Clarke flinched- "and you won't listen. What happened? Why were you gone for so long? Please, talk to me." By the end of the declaration, her mother was begging. Clarke sat back down, feeling bile and pain creep up her throat as she wondered how to summarize what had happened. The memory hadn't healed over yet, and she wasn't ready to reopen the wound.

"I can't- I can't." Clarke pushed past her mother into the hallway, despite many protests. Standing, moving, everything made her dizzy. Maybe it was the lights, maybe it was the people. The people, so many people- she'd been alone for so long. Whispers including her name bounced from steel wall to steel wall as she passed, but she could hardly listen. Brushing past more medical staff, she threw open one curtain after another, searching. He wasn't here. Or here. Or here. With each disappointment, Clarke wondered- _how much blood had he lost? Had they put the tourniquet in the right place? Had her mother been hiding something in their brief conversation? Was Bellamy even alive?_ She realized there was only one curtained area left, and that fearful sobs were already forcing their way out of her chest. With a shaky breath that rattled her fractured ribs, Clarke ripped the curtain aside. And there he was.

He lay on sheets that seemed dull against the warmth of his skin, all stitched, bandaged, and re-patched. He was so still that Clarke thought her fears might have been justified. Then his chest rose, like the sun, and fell just as naturally.

She allowed the tears to fall, finally, though silently. He was still sleeping- so peacefully, with no dried blood or sweat anywhere on him. She leant over the side of the bar on the foot of the bed, crumpling. The panic, grief, and pure exhaustion took her over. She managed to get to the side of the bed, delicately laying her head on the blanket. Her tears soaked the unfamiliarly soft fabric beneath her face. And then, suddenly, a warm hand stroked her hair.

Bellamy's eyes raked open slowly. He knew where he was at once- ironic. But a tiny, broken breath rasped through the silence of the room, and he knew she was here. He rustled his hand over the sheets and felt her hair beneath his fingertips.

"We made it." He could barely hear over the pressure in his head, but he mumbled as best he could.  
  
Clarke's head snapped up. His hand moved to her neck. He suddenly felt her hands around his face, and he looked upward.  
Her face against the ceiling, crinkled with worry and dotted with tears of relief, was the closest thing to an angel Bellamy had ever seen. No one, maybe not even Octavia, had cared so much about him. He recalled all the times he had studied her face- watching her eyes growing in interest, her cheeks flushing with cold, or her lips parting in a smile. Now, all he could focus on were the places their skin met, how carefully her hands cradled his head.

"Bellamy." She whispered huskily, one of her tears falling on his face. Then, with no warning except a little inhale of determination, she dipped her head and pressed her lips to his.

Bellamy pressed back without hesitation. The boiling cold, the freezing warmth of pure joy traveled from his lips to fill his entire body. They washed into each other like steaming spring water, their hands rolling over and everywhere, cupping and grasping and paddling, a memory of a splash fight below glacier-carved boulders. But the ice was long gone, and everything that had ever come between them was melted away. Bellamy was hypnotized by the heat of her mouth and the slow twist of her lips against his. He decided right then and there that this, whatever he had found, was the eighth wonder of the world- or maybe the first wonder of the new world.

They parted. Neither could form a word or a thought, but neither needed to. Her fingers stayed tangled in his hair as they breathed, lips only centimeters apart. Staring at her cupid's bow, the way the pink of her lips melted into the ivory of her chin, her dimple- Bellamy couldn't help it. He kissed her again. It was the kind of slow kiss meant to hang in the air, to be absorbed and savored. No such pleasures were afforded. Not on Earth.

"Clarke!" The two were shocked out of their trance, and Clarke quickly pulled away, sitting beside Bellamy on the hospital cot. It was Abby, closing the curtain, frustrated. Jackson was behind her. "We thought you'd run to the main gate." Clarke backed against the headboard, straightening her legs. Bellamy didn't have the courage to meet her eyes, for fear of what he might find there. Would it be regret? Shock? He wasn't sure if he could survive without her.

"Mom. I needed to- I had to make sure-" Abby marched over.

"If you had given me two minutes, I'd have told you he was fine. But you both need to rest. Come with me." Clarke clutched Bellamy's arm, her nails digging into his skin, for a fraction of a moment. A tendril of hope sprouted inside Bellamy. _She wanted to stay._

"Dr Griffin." Bellamy's voice was lower than usual. "I'll explain everything to you." Relief doused Clarke from head to toe. He steeled himself. "But I think Clarke would like to stay." He cocked his head to the cubicle on the left. Abby nodded slowly.

"Fine. Jackson?" The small man nodded and closed the curtains around them but left the divider open, helping Clarke onto the other bed. "Alright. You two feel up to talking right now?" Working up his resolve, Bellamy shot Clarke a reassuring glance- but there was a leftover heat in his eyes, too. Something warm and small in the pit of Clarke's stomach took a nosedive. She swallowed and nodded.

Over the next hour and a half, Bellamy walked the chancellor through their journey. Clarke lay still, watching the ceiling, pretending she was somewhere- or someone- else. The only giveaway of the agony she was reliving was the occasional clench of a muscle or a sudden inhale. Though Bellamy was telling the story to Abby, he kept his eyes on Clarke. Every time she twitched, his body responded identically.

Finally, they were alone.

Bellamy ran a hand through his hair. Clarke turned on her side, allowing just a few tears loose. She stared at the floor.

"Are you okay?" Bellamy wished, more than anything, that he could get out of this damn bed and fold her in his arms. But Abby hadn't left without reminding him about the threat of ripped stitches. Still, his mind spun wildly: _she had kissed him_. Finally. After so many months- or was it years, now?- of being just out of each other's reach. His eyes rested on her easily, following the line of her back that draped low before broadening into her hips. She still hadn't answered. "Clarke? Are you okay?"

"I want to be." Her eyes dragged to meet his like a rusty anchor slowly winched into sea air.

  
"Hey." Tears, clinging onto the anchor, pulled from fathoms below, spilled from her eyes. He couldn't stand it.

  
"What are you doing?" He eased onto his elbows and swung his legs over the side, every painfully recent stitch twanging. "No. You need to rest." Even in such a situation, she was still thinking like a doctor. Bellamy couldn't resist cracking a tiny grin, albeit diluted by pain. She sighed and stood, smiling through tears as she pushed him back onto his bed. He could always make her smile. He sat up.

  
"You won't let me be your knight in shining armor anymore?" Another joke, but with a serious, breathy undertone that Clarke didn't miss. She shook her head, and he smiled. Bellamy eased an arm around her waist and tugged her into place next to him. Just like that, the tension returned to the room. They'd been huddling for warmth for months now, but this closeness felt new and dangerous. His arm stayed around her waist, and where their skin met through the ties of her hospital gown, it burned. For once, she couldn't bear it.

  
"Bellamy?" Her voice was smaller than usual, coming from an entirely different place in her body.

  
"Clarke?" Bellamy lifted her chin. His eyes landed on her mouth before sinking back into those blue eyes.

  
Delicately, he feathered the lightest kiss imaginable over her lips. It was a hope and a question rolled into a quick brush of skin and souls. After a breath, Clarke had the answer.

  
She plummeted to him like a meteor falling uninhibited to Earth. She caught fire on the way down and her lips were hot and frantic by the time they reached his. This kiss was nothing like the last. Clarke's fingers, finally warm, tugged at Bellamy's thick black curls like a morning tide washing away the darkness of the night. His hands drifted to her hips, avoiding the bandage on her left side. She reached down and clutched his hand in hers, keeping the other coiled his neck. They parted, and Clarke's hand drifted up Bellamy's arm. On her way up, she traced around each wound, each stitch, and Bellamy shivered when she reached his collarbone.

  
"I hate to agree with my mother, but we're both in pretty bad shape," she whispered. Bellamy couldn't hide his smile. Her hair hung over his face, and he folded a piece behind her ear. He lifted his head and kissed her jaw, slowly and softly.

  
"I'm all of a sudden feeling better, actually." Bellamy couldn't disguise the heat in his voice.

  
"Really?" Clarke rolled to the side and chuckled. She took his hand in both of hers, tracing the lines in his palm. Her expression sharpened and she met his gaze. "Thank you, though. For coming to find me." He traced gentle circles on her shoulder with his thumb.

  
"I wouldn't have lasted much longer without you anyway." Clarke believed him.

  
For a few moments, the pair just lay there in the afterglow, savoring each other's company. Then, Clarke dipped her head into Bellamy's neck, and they fell asleep together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Thanks so much for reading, and as always, kudos and comments are immensely appreciated. I have some more ideas for this story and will keep updating as much as possible- and I hoped you liked their first kiss. I don't have much (or any, ha) experience writing romance, so feedback is VERY welcome. <3


End file.
